MxMIndia

Category: COLUMNS

  • The winner of the ads I don't understand category came in this morning papers (and not on television oddly enough) with Blackberry saying an asterisk had something to do with action

    Ranjona Banerji: When ads hit a miss

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    This time I think Airtel has hit a miss: the “what’s mine is yours or what’s yours is mine or what’s mine is mine song” makes you reach for the mute button on your remote. I suppose all good things have to come to an end and Airtel did pretty well with its earlier songs about friendship and sharing. It is testament to good advertising that while I do not actually remember the songs, I do remember them as being listenable.

     

    The grouchy old man as in Ranbir Kapoor for Tata Docomo has outrun its usefulness and is starting to grate. Sooner rather than later, their own customers are going to start thinking about how they’ve kept waiting on the phone, how the service slows down at the wrong time usually and the difficulty of trying to get a human on the line when you have a complaint…

     

    Most people are now feeling the same way about Anushka Sharma, especially her of the Reliance 3G ad. Most feel that she’s too nasty. I feel the worst she can be accused of is grossly exaggerating Reliance’s service. I know it’s a script but perhaps Reliance (or its ad agency) might remember that people are not quite that stupid all the time. Speaking of which, why doesn’t that boyfriend just switch to the same service and end her smart-aleckyness? Maybe he likes her just the way she is? He seems to be a tolerant chap with a sense of humour. Or perhaps his service doesn’t have goons masquerading as bill collectors?

     

    Car buyers although must be quite silly because the “caaaaaaaaar” ad is back. Nissan Sunny is it? I have only one question: whhhhhhyyyyyy? But then I remember the brand so maybe the brand has won but then if I ever buy a car it won’t be this one for sure because I don’t want to sound like a prime twit as I say, “Driver, caaaaaaaaaar le ke aana” to a lift full of strangers. At the very least, I would know the name of my own driver.

     

    If I had to buy a car, it would be a Renault Fluence not because I like it or I know anything about cars but just so I could shut up my show-offy upstart host with his horrible American accent and his skin-crawl-worthy bragging about his things.

     

    The winner of the ads I don’t understand category came in this morning papers (and not on television oddly enough) with Blackberry saying an asterisk had something to do with action. I’m not a Blackberry boy (or girl) and I have some other idea about the usefulness of asterisks, so I was at a complete loss. The ad ran over two pages but more space does not always aid comprehension.

     

    Finally, I now firmly believe that the most irritating song of all is the inspirational one from Hero MotoCorp. All this hysterical urging of India to go has led to all the Indians coming back empty-handed from the Olympics. Trying to make money and tempting fate at the same time? All that you get is bad Karma!

     

  • Indian news channels forever want to whip up public sentiment and push up rating points with some badly directed drama, rues Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Outrage Unlimited on news telly

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Expectedly, Indian new channels were very moved by the attack on a gurudwara and the deaths of at least six Sikhs in the American state of Wisconsin on Sunday. However, their pain is not tempered by any sense of journalism so they tend to jump straight into a series of discussions based on unworkable premises. Regardless of how patriotic TV news people in India are and how they care about the plight of Indians abroad, the Indian government cannot send the army to protect Sikhs in America or indeed people of Indian origin anywhere else in the world. Nor can Indian investigating agencies jump in. Also, to have a bunch of understandably upset but substantially uninformed people competing for air time is unproductive. Not surprisingly, senior journalist Chidanand Rajghatta looked visibly disgusted on Times Now.

     

    It is also not possible for Indian TV outrage to change the USA’s gun laws. Such a discussion, earnest and less hyper though it may have been on NDTV, is also an exercise in self-indulgence.

     

    Arnab Goswami of Times Now was very upset that Sikhs are targeted in the US. I cannot remember any similar pain or any dramatic debates when it appeared as if people from Andhra Pradesh were being targeted. South India too far away from the purview of TV news?

     

    But what is new in what I’ve just said? It happens every time and each time, it looks more and more like a farce to whip up public sentiment and push up rating points with some badly directed drama.

     

    **

     

    Indian newspapers chose not to lead with this story although most put it on the front page. They also presented readers with the facts, sans comment. What comment can there be so soon after such a terrible crime, as the investigation is unfolding and facts are still being revealed?

     

    **

     

    It’s still Olympics time. The marvellous exploits of Usain Bolt captured imaginations worldwide and even in self-obsessed India. Indian wonderwoman boxer Mary Kom’s medal prospects also excited a nation so short on Olympic medals.

     

    But let’s consider the curious case of shooter Vijay Kumar who won a silver medal in London 2012. In the run-up to the elections, shooters were definitely in focus and newspaper after newspaper told us that Abhinav Bindra – gold medallist in Beijing – Gagan Narang and Ronjan Sodhi were our best medal prospects. We also saw some of them in TV promos telling us that they were “Olumpians” and Indians. But Vijay Kumar got nary a mention.

     

    Early on, Narang got a bronze so perhaps the hype was justified in his case. Bindra did have a gold, so who would guess that he wouldn’t even make the grade in London. Sodhi got nowhere very fast.

     

    So, as it turns out, India’s best medal in shooting came from Kumar, a subedar in the Indian army. Kumar’s credentials are excellent – he has three golds from the Commonwealth Games and medals from the Asian Games and other international tournaments. Why didn’t he get any media attention before the Olympics?

     

    Conversations with sports journalists have revealed a sad story of laziness and reliance on PR. The other shooters were more media savvy and journalists were just not bothered to find out about people like Kumar. This would be mildly acceptable if Kumar came out of nowhere to win. But that is not the case.

     

    Kumar himself was a little shocked that the media was presenting him as an outsider. He told CNN-IBN that they may not have seem him as a medal contender but he always knew he was! Indian sports journalists are often the best of our breed but lately…

     

    As it stands, Kumar’s the only silver medal winner for India so far at these Games…

     

    Ranjona Banerji, senior journalist and commentator, is Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are her own.

     

  • … and India demanded answers on Times Now. But other channels and sportspersons were not as outraged, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: When Boria Majumdar went ballistic on Vikas Krishan

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Even though the greatest show on earth is far from over, it can be nominated a news dominator this week and possibly next week as well. The Olympics have been at the forefront of news in India, as has plenty of hope, hysteria and of course given that this is an international competition, as much jingoism as possible.

     

    The top purveyor of jingoism in the English news world in India is Times Now and its main proponent is Boria Majumdar. I do not know what his journalistic credentials are (the few times I have tried to read his mediocre writings he is described as an academic) but there he is, screeching away as he saves India’s pride or takes India to task all over London. His greatest glory came when the boxer Vikas Krishan was first declared a winner and then a loser in his bout against an American boxer. Majumdar stayed up all night pondering this terrible act of cruelty. Then he woke up all the Indian officials to find out why they were sleeping when they should have declared war on Britain, the International Olympic Committee, the USA, the various boxing federations, the judges and so on.

     

    Once Majumdar informed Times Now (I really hope he woke up all the biggies at 5 am also), the channel found a juicy bone to get its patriotic teeth into. India demanded answers, why was prime minister Manmohan Singh not calling American president Barack Obama, was Suresh Kalmadi somehow responsible, how dare India sleep when an Indian as insulted and other such thrilling stuff.

     

    The other channels and other journalists and other sportspersons which and who are clearly not such supreme patriots started looking for the reasoning behind such a brutal decision by the judges. Boxer Akhil Kumar on CNN-IBN said quite clearly that the American had boxed better and he was surprised when Krishan won. Others who saw the match said that even the Indian boxer looked surprised that he had won. Others pointed out that this outrage should have been directed at the loss handed out to Indian boxer Sumit Sangwan who everyone, from the commentators of the match, said had been cheated out of a victory.

     

    Anyway, soon Indian Saina Nehwal won a bronze medal and then shooter Vijay Kumar won a silver (and that story we shall take on tomorrow) and Krishna Poonia conducted herself very well in the discus competition and we forgot all about the war fronts India had opened up across the planet.

     

    **

     

    And at the end, a lesson for Anna Hazare and his dyspeptic gang of newborn politicians – next time you want to launch a grand movement, don’t do it during the Olympics. There is only so much patriotism the people of India can digest at any one time.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior editor and commentator. She is Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are her own

     

  • Right now though, I'm worried about the management jargon that enters the mainstream by the "backside"

    Ranjona Banerji: Any more skilling and I’m killing myself!

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Oxford English Dictionary, the last word on lexicography to many, has included many new “Indian” words in it. These are words that are peculiarly Indian like “prepone” or “airdash”, plus “crore” and “lakh”. So bring out the tricolour and let’s have a round of “Jana Gana Mana” to celebrate.

     

    Journalists across the country, please take a bow. Airdash is definitely a journo word and every Indian newspaper uses lakh and crore. Except, of course, the pink papers who want to be international and so prefer million. As we all know the international community of bankers and investors are falling over themselves to read Indian pink papers. I lie. I sometimes doubt whether bankers and investors can read at all, whatever their national origins. I would also give a journalistic nod to “chargesheet” and “undertrial” since newspapers use both all the time, though presumably, so do the police and the legal fraternity.

     

    Prepone and airdash are not so bad if you think about it: Both make sense. Though to be honest it’s not often that meetings in India start before the appointed time. And more curiously, airdash was coined when the only Indian airline was Indian Airlines and no would describe the experience of flying with them “dashing”. And, fact is, the words have become a little cliched and jaded and we’ve laughed at them for years.

     

    Years ago senior subs would tell their young ones to avoid used airdash since it had become a joke. And grammar purists of yore (now called grammar nazis by the Twitter generation who can neither spell nor understand syntax construction) would shudder at prepone.

     

    But tolerance can only go so far. I now await with horror the day that the Indian use of “lesser” becomes acceptable. For some reason, we don’t like to use the simple “less” when it comes to quantitative measures. Some things just cost less money. No need to make it lesser money. Lesser money would imply that the money itself was devalued. Like what’s happened to the rupee against the dollar. You could at a stretch say that because you used the rupee instead of the dollar to pay your bills, you used lesser money (all right, off with my head). Lesser is a qualitative description.

     

    But that’s my permanent language bugbear. You might have your own.

     

    Right now though, I’m worried about the management jargon that enters the mainstream by the “backside” (okay, a cheap joke, but backside usually refers to the human posterior end in common usage rather than the back of some inanimate object which is how it is all too often used). I read a headline in the Economic Times the other day – written by some management type – which asked for more “skilling”. Now this is not an Olympic sport. It is part of an ongoing management trend – led, it seems, by Americans – to make nouns into verbs. So if you want to increase or hone skills, then that presumably is skilling. The great management skill it seems is to kill language.

     

    Incidentally, Microsoft Word does not seem to like airdash or prepone but that could be because mine is an old version. But what the IT community has done to language is a whole other grouse. The only good news is that Word doesn’t accept skilling either. Yet.

     

  • Don't let the headline above fool you and click on it to read Ranjona Banerji's take on the coverage on the Northern Grid collapse and why she loves Boria Majumdar so much

    Ranjona Banerji: Good to hear sports greats on CNN-IBN

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Which is bigger news wise? Gagan Narang winning an Olympic bronze, the collapse of the Northern grid leading eight states, including the national capital, powerless for close to eight hours or a fire in a train in Tamil Nadu leading to at least 30 deaths? It’s a tough call to some but most newspapers decided that “feel good” was the way to go and Narang got top billing therefore. After that, as far as Mumbai’s big two broadsheets are concerned it looks like Hindustan Times exercised better judgment than The Times of India. HT Mumbai took the power grid collapse as the second lead and carried the train accident just above the fold, giving all there prominence. Times of India gave the power story a single column and then decided to go what used to be the DNA way when I worked there – fill every page with 80,000 stories. This can be counter-productive: the reader may be impressed that you have so much news but gets confused about which tiny bit to read first.

     

    **

     

    Primetime TV news was on its usual trip. These days, they have permanent scanners on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and on members of the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption movement. And when the two converge, nothing like it! Every time Modi sneezes or Arvind Kejriwal hiccups, we get a panel discussion. The same people mysteriously appear on every channel at the same time. They say the same things. And most sensible people are either watching the Olympics, Masterchef Australia, going out for dinner or reading a book.

     

    But I have to give a shout out to Arnab Goswami for his impassioned speech about the flip flops in the Anna Hazare movement. And good effort by Rajdeep Sardesai, trying to make some sense of why safety is not a priority for the Indian Railways.

     

    **

     

    Olympics coverage has been good across most newspapers – although sometimes with too much focus on India. The world’s best athletes have gathered to demonstrate their prowess after all, so more about them please. But the winner for me would be the special discussions on CNN-IBN with Michael Ferreira, Geet Sethi, Vimal Kumar, Enrico Piperno, Raghavendra Rathore and others. It’s illuminating to hear sports greats discussing other sportspersons and recounting their own experiences without losing their tempers. Getting the great Carl Lewis is a good coup as well.

     

    Times Now has the squeaky and annoying Boria Majumdar so I am afraid to go there.

     

    **

     

    While on sports, he’s a good friend of mine but I defy anyone to anyone to make sense of Bobbili Vijay Kumar’s attempt in yesterday’s Times of India to try and give a cricket spin to archery just because the Olympic event was taking place at the hallowed ground of Lords. After two paragraphs I knew that even if William Tell’s father stuck an apple on my head I wouldn’t be able to understand it.

     

    Ranjona Banerji, senior journalist and commentator and Contributing Editor, MxMIndia, reviews media four times a week. The views here are her own.

     

     

  • The British feel that Indians only feel welcome when they see other Indians. In this case it backfired – as cultural determinism normally does

    Ranjona Banerji: Honey, you stole the show!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    It’s hard to choose the biggest noosemaker of last week. Was it Danny Boyle for his quirky, funny and very British opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games? Was it Madhura Nagendra aka Madhura Honey for gate-crashing India’s flag march in the parade of nations and not being colour coordinated at the same time? Or was it our old friends, the various members of Team Anna in their fight against corruption and the people of India who support them?

     

    This Honey or Nagendra person, depending on how affectionate you feel about her, has got no affection from the people of India – even less than they have for Anna Hazare. She smiled as she stole the show from our athletes but since then she has apparently even cancelled her Facebook page. The crime was double-fold: walking in the parade as if she belonged there, smiling away and then wearing bright red and turquoise which clashed horrible with the yellow of the Indian team. This is a rule which all gate-crashers must follow – at least attempt to blend in.

     

    Her daddy in Bangalore has tried to defend her (daddies are vital for the defence of all those connected with Indian sport as we discovered in the Bhupathi-Paes face off, especially daddies from Bangalore) and so funnily enough has Lord Sebastian Coe of the London Olympics. Nagendra got “over-excited” he said. She was supposed to be a performer which is why she was lurking about, but was not eventually selected which is why she had no business lurking about. Then there’s the other suspicion (mine) of the British propensity for cultural determinism. Someone put her there to make the Indians athletes feel welcome as they entered the arena, it was hinted at somewhere. This is because the British feel that Indians only feel welcome when they see other Indians. In this case it backfired – as cultural determinism normally does.

     

    So where does it leave Danny Boyle? Probably wishing he had selected Honey-Nagendra. What is this Honey thing anyway? The Indian press applauded the opening ceremony as did most of the world. Most even forgot that there was some speculation about AR Rahman being part of the show -which he wasn’t and no one cared.

     

    Mumbai Mirror’s headline “Tepid London Boyle’s Over” upset firstpost.com which pointed out that the headline and the body copy did not match.

     

    * * *

     

    That leads us to the latest fast by Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption crusaders. Last year over one lakh people supported him in Delhi and that was a lot and this year 6,000 people supported him and that was a lot. In Mumbai last year when 5,000 turned up in Bandra that was too little, and this year 2,000 people in VT is a lot.

     

    Thus proving that even mathematics is relative: If only my maths teacher had bought that argument when I was in school.

     

  • It is very tempting here to blame television for making heroes out of, to use Suhel Seth's favourite word here, dolts, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Is it okay to blame TV for Suhel Seth’s insulting comments on Viren Rasquinha?

    By Ranjona Banerji

    The outrage on Twitter the past couple of days was over the comments of adman and TV personality Suhel Seth at the Times Literary Carnival over the weekend. Those without media-sponsored short-term memory problems might recall that an invitation to editor and rape accused Tarun Tejpal just a few weeks ago caused huge anger on the social media circuit. The invitation was withdrawn in a huff by the festival’s curator, veteran editor and columnist Bachi Karkaria.

    Sunday’s sessions at the festival included one on the future of sport, which included as a panellist former Indian hockey captain Viren Rasquinha. Suhel Seth was part of the next session and in his introductory speech he said (about Rasquinha), “Don’t know what that bald guy is doing on a panel on sports. What’s he done?”

    This caused immediate mayhem with Rasquinha furious and tournament director Karkaria had to go up on stage and apologise. I spoke to veteran journalist and India’s best known cricket writer Ayaz Memon who moderated the session with Rasquinha. He said, “Seth’s comments were nasty, unacceptable and symptomatic of the complete ignorance about sport in India.”

    So just what has Rasquinha to do with sports? He is not just a former India hockey captain, he is also an Olympian and an Arjuna Award winner. He is chief operating officer of Olympic Gold Quest, India’s best agency for sporting (and spotting) talent, which has had much success with the sportspersons it has nurtured at successive Olympic Games and other world events.

    Seth on the other hand worked in advertising, owned an advertising agency and is also known for general schmoozing and networking in Delhi’s social and political circles. He has done bit roles in a few films here and there. Not in the same league as Rasquinha (no Olympic status, please to note) but his connections, his fluent and smart-alecky language, have made him a regular on TV news debates. Clearly, he was trying to be too-clever-by-half and it backfired.

    Rasquinha tweeted his anger. Seth finally apologised. But only after he was attacked on twitter, which Seth also referred to.

    The carnival (how else to refer to it?) itself is not to blame here. They could not possibly have known that Seth would insult a guest on another panel. Seth stands along here, wallowing in his cleverness. He is known for a particular kind of behaviour. His ignorance about Rasquinha is excusable. No one can be expected to know everything. But the reason – if indeed it is fair to use the word reason in such a context – for such comment is unfathomable. Rudeness is a more appropriate word than clever. Or perhaps this was an attempt at humour.

    Some people feel that any publicity is good publicity and that the carnival gained from the Tejpal notoriety and will only benefit from this as well. All that may well be true. But it is no less distasteful for all that.

    Once again it is Twitter which has flexed its muscles and made its presence felt. The power of social media can be over-estimated and blown out of proportion especially when you consider the number of people who are not on it. But nor can its power be denied. It is very tempting here to blame television for making heroes out of, dare I use Seth’s favourite word here, dolts.

  • Almost 30 years in the media have taught me that life and death are cyclical. You never know when something revives, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Why slam Mid-Day, Ms Baghel?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    This week, I’m taking on a personal grouse, so I apologise in advance.

     

    There can be no doubt that Mumbai Mirror started in 2005 like a breath of fresh air in the city of Mumbai. It was exciting, bold and entertaining and gave the idea of news a daring dynamic. Much of the credit for this goes to Meenal Baghel, the editor of the newspaper who was interviewed yesterday on mxmindia.com.

     

    I know Meenal only very vaguely but am full of admiration for the newspaper that she created and nurtured. Mumbai Mirror has in a short space of time – six years – made itself indispensable to many and has displayed a sure hand, a deft touch in dealing with news and giving it that tabloid spin. All kudos. But I have felt a dip in Mirror in the past couple of years – perhaps because Baghel was involved in overseeing the various editions of Mirror which have started all over the country. The edge was missing and the newspaper had started doing what seemed to me to be “college boy” stories. In fact, I shifted to The Economic Times, using The Times of India’s various subscription schemes as a result. This I must emphasise is my personal opinion.

     

    However, I was intrigued to read this in her interview to Anil Thakraney:

     

    “You’ve pretty much killed Mid-Day. Feels good?

    The paper killed itself. And I feel really bad. I feel bad that what was such a robust paper is no longer that. We all worked very hard out there. We worked our asses off at Mid-Day and we used to take great pride in the paper being so robust, that it was second only to the TOI.”

     

    Before becoming editor of Mirror, Baghel was deputy editor of Mid-day.

     

    But this is where I have a little story to tell. In 1993, Pradyuman Maheshwari, editor-in-chief of mxmindia.com joined Mid-day. We left at the same time in 2000. In those years, we had to work very hard, for most of that time under the editorship of Ayaz Memon to make Mid-Day a strong and credible Mumbai property. Baghel worked for Mid-Day in the dispensation that followed all of us leaving in 2000. When we left, Mid-Day and Sunday Mid-Day had been on a rising graph as far as circulation and readership were concerned. A survey of readers during that stint had this most interesting quote: The Times of India is seen as a “respected uncle” while Mid-Day is seen as the “Shah Rukh Khan of newspapers”. I can say without any false modesty that when we quit, Mid-Day was a force to reckon with in Mumbai. Tariq Ansari is the best publisher I have every worked with, so all credit to him. Incidentally, Anil Thakraney was also part of the group for a few of those years, as editor of The Brief.

     

    Within six months of our leaving, Mid-Day lost almost 60,000 copies in circulation. It has taken it almost a decade to get back to the figures it was at when Ayaz, Pradyuman and I quit. Mid-Day has had many great editors and journalists working for it in the past – some great luminaries of Indian journalism – but not, I have to say, since 2000. They still have time to turn luminaries. I am sure that everyone worked very hard because that is what the newspaper and the medium demanded. We had four editions a day in my time but that was disbanded shortly after.

     

    I do not want to take away from Baghel’s formidable achievements in journalism. Her book on the Neeraj Grover case is excellent from all accounts (I have not read it). But almost 30 years in the media have taught me that life and death are cyclical. You never know when something revives, and I for one would advise desisting from slamming other publications – especially those that you have worked with in the past.

     

    From what I understand from IRS figures, Mid-Day is on the rise again under the able stewardship of Sachin Kalbag. Plus I write a column for them again, so who knows! (That last line was a joke, by the way.)

     

     

    The views expressed here are Ranjona’s own. But we are carrying these not because I endorse them, but it’s a view and must get aired. Plus it’s part of her blog/column. Also, who doesn’t mind a li’l bit of controversy. Lol.

    Just for the record: I had moved on from the main paper to the interactive division in ’99, though I would still write a media column in the Sunday paper. And, yes, I quit the group a couple of months after Ayaz and Ranjona had moved.

    I resubscribed to Mid-Day (on weekdays) three weeks back, and must say it has improved much. However the paid news policy – albeit in the entertainment section – sucks. Sunday Mid-Day though could do with some more, to use the word Meenal used, energy.

    – Pradyuman Maheshwari

     

  • The idea of freedom of speech has to be absolute. But in India, we are constantly alert to various sentiments being upset, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Anyone cares about Freedom of Speech?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The case of Shireen Dalvi, editor of the Mumbai edition of the Urdu newspaper Awadhnama, perfectly and in some ways tragically encapsulates our wavering devotion to freedom of speech and the up-and-down solidarity between journalists.

     

    Many in India – on social media at least – came out in support of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo even though few had even heard of it before the ghastly terror attack by Islamists leaving 14 dead. But standing with Shirin Dalvi is another matter. So what if the newspaper she edited is published from Mumbai and not Paris? So what if she’s been in hiding since January 17 because of cases filed against her by Muslim fundamentalists and others because she reprinted a Charlie Hebdo cartoon? So what if her children are too frightened to go to college? So what if the Mumbai branch of the newspaper has been shut down by the owners leaving Dalvi and other employees jobless?

     

    Dalvi has been charged under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, “outraging religious sentiments with malicious intent”. Dalvi had in fact apologised for carrying the cartoon, making it clear that she did not want to blaspheme the prophet Mohammed. She also wrote an editorial saying that the way to protest against such cartoons is not by killing or threats.

     

    The idea of freedom of speech has to be absolute. But in India, we are constantly alert to various sentiments being upset. The idea that Dalvi as an editor and a journalist has certain rights has been ignored by the Mumbai police in this instance over the rights of those who have felt offended.

     

    Veteran journalist Jyoti Punwani, in this article for scroll.in, finds that there is another angle to the hounding of Dalvi: the fact that she is a rare female editor with a meteoric career rise in the male-dominated world of Urdu journalism: http://scroll.in/article/704074/Behind-hounding-of-female-editor-who-published-Hebdo-cover,-pettiness-of-Urdu-journalism-lies-exposed

     

    It is heartening in some small measure that both the Mumbai Press Club and the Bombay Union of Journalists have issued statements in support of Dalvi and most Mumbai editions of newspapers have been carrying articles about the case. But a larger voice, like we saw for Charlie Hebdo? Uh-huh.

     

    This is from the statement of the Mumbai Press Club:

    “We see this as a systematic attempt to intimidate a journalist who was merely doing her job, and drive her out of the profession. Her being a woman editor, a rarity in the Urdu media, seems to have has added an edge to her persecution. We call upon the state government to create conditions for her and her children to be able to return home and live in security.

     

    The Press Club is also writing to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who also heads the state Home Ministry, to stop the harassment of Shireen Dalvi through trumped up FIRs, and to ensure that she and her children are provided police protection.”

     

    **

     

    The national media’s hysteria over the Delhi state elections continues (or, as one news channel put it, “our continuous coverage continues”).

     

    Those who watch TV regularly know that the entire world is circumscribed by Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Amit Shah and Narendra Modi. Who knows, perhaps it is.

     

    **

     

    The only way out for those in India who have other things to think about than Delhi seems to be the release of a new Amitabh Bachchan film. Which perhaps proves that Bollywood PR beats political PR hands down. This I write judging from the appearance of India’s best known film star on every news channel.

     

    A “sham” approach to news?

     

  • It's going to be a chaotic year for entertainment content regulation and censorship, notes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: The AIB & MSG controversies: Symptoms of a Larger Malice?

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    The mass resignation at the Censor Board, after the film MSG was cleared by the appellate tribunal in a hurry, set the tone for what was to follow. There was a bizarre little news on the word “Bombay” being beeped out in a music video. And now, the AIB controversy over the Ranveer-Arjun ‘roast’ has firmly set the agenda for 2015 – it’s going to be a chaotic year for entertainment content regulation and censorship.

     

    The AIB controversy, eventually leading to the comedy group pulling off the videos off their YouTube channel, has triggered off a lot of discussion, especially on the social media. The slant of most opinions expressed is around the idea of freedom of speech. A few who have spoken against AIB have centered their argument on the extreme use of profanity in the videos.

     

    Unfortunately, most such opinions come across as rants, which serve little purpose in the real world, because in reality, the subject of regulation, censorship and moral policing is far more complex than how it’s often positioned in the media.

     

    The central piece of this complexity is the structure of the regulatory mechanism, where separate laws or guidelines control different media. The film certification board (CBFC) has been liberal in granting ‘A’ certificates to a wide range of films that have pushed the envelope on language, graphic violence and adult video content. But the same content has to be censored again for home video and satellite, since those are technically different media.

     

    The audience may be the same, but the context of viewing, not the audience or the content, seems to be dictating what can be seen on a TV at home. The same TV channel, when streamed over the Internet, can still screen only the content that has passed the TV guidelines. But the ‘uncensored’ version of the same content is available on the Internet anyway.

     

    Then we have cases of Hollywood filmmakers refusing to release their films in India with censor cuts, and the anti-smoking warning to distract the audience every time a character smokes on screen, sometimes for less than a second!

     

    In this trigger-happy environment, where everyone has a view and all guidelines comes with their bagful of loopholes, we see ad hoc decisions being taken by all sides. TV channels are known to blur cleavage shots in foreign content, the kinds of which would be routine in a U/A censored Hindi movie. In the subtitles, there is a mass sanitisation of the language, and even words like beef are removed. No one wants to face the wrath of the moral police or a government body. After all, channels have been pulled off air for violating these vaguely-defined norms.

     

    This week, I figured that there is another set of guidelines for stage performances. Apparently, you can’t perform anything impromptu, because you need to submit a script for approval. It also turns out that there is no staff to read the script, but if there’s a controversy later, they do have a staff to match the script vis-à-vis the actual content, and pick holes.

     

    Essentially, if the AIB Roast had not made it to YouTube, all would have fine. Yet, the regulatory concern is about the stage show part of it, not the internet broadcast.  Internet remains the elephant in the room no one wants to address.

     

    As technology permeates our vast country, the prevailing confusion will continue to multiply. We may be in for a lot more randomness in the coming months and years. Like always, the entertainment industry tends to be at the receiving end, often the soft targets of the moral police for quick publicity. But there’s little doubt in my mind that our ambiguous regulatory norms fuel this moral police.

     

    There are no easy answers, except to say that what’s required is an overhaul, not a tweak. And no, this is not a discussion on ‘freedom of speech’, but one on ‘freedom from obsolescence’.

     

  • Having surfed through most news channels in various Indian languages, it was clear that the most exciting channel was Times Now, writes Ranjona Banerji

    AAPHEW! Ranjona Banerji: Times Now, Twitter score with Delhi results

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    “ARNAB GOSWAMI JUST CONGRATULATED ARNAB GOSWAMI FOR HIS VICTORY IN THE DELHI ELECTION!”

     

    This is a tweet, capital letters and all, from Overrated Outcast (@Over_rated). Because without a doubt, Times Now was the only channel worth watching, for its entertainment value at least, as the results of the Delhi state elections were being counted.

     

    It started soon after 8am on February 10 as the counting started. Other news channels started putting out trend figures. Goswami was spitting scorn. Other channels, he said, were “psephological paparazzi”. Some hapless guest tried to claim that phrase as his own. I laughed so much that I missed who the guest was: mea culpa. But Goswami used the phrase through the morning as results poured in and has effectively made it his own.

     

    He carried on with it and by 11.40am was even asking for a CBI enquiry into news channels which put out figures which inflated the BJP’s wins!

     

    Times Now and Goswami also took great glee in pointing out that exit polls and forecasters got the Delhi election wrong, since the Aam Aadmi Party effectively swept through Delhi. But one might point out that the night before, on February 9, Navika Kumar of Times Now said that the BJP could not be written off since the BJP claimed that there was a voting surge for them between 3 and 5 in the afternoon on voting day. Goswami did not at that time react as fiercely as he did with such claimants on February 10.

     

    Instead, Goswami, who is often seen as pro-BJP, took off on the BJP as the results became clear. Shazia Ilmi walked out of the studio after being asked tough questions. This is a sure way of getting ahead of the rating points for any channel and Times Now has won.

     

    Having surfed through most news channels in various Indian languages, it was clear that the most exciting channel was Times Now. And all credit for that has to go to Goswami for being compelling viewing, with all the attendant melodrama and hysterics. He interrupted the discussions to show us where in the world the hashtag #TimesNow was trending. The US apparently, where he told us, Times Now has a huge following. No ad breaks, however.

     

    But having doffed my hat to Times Now and it is still blaring as I write this, the winner has to be Twitter across all media. There is no better way to track news events. You don’t just get the news but you get humour, analysis, wit, scorn, anger, bitterness and rubbish as well: the whole human experience.

     

    And as for tracking the election results, the Election Commission is surely the most reliable: http://eciresults.nic.in/.

     

    You can track the results through constituency, party and vote share. You can therefore be ahead of the hysteria of news channels. Though the fun of Arnab Goswami cannot be beat! NDTV, too civilised and calm. Headlines Today looks like a CNN-IBN copy unless Rahul Kanwal and Gaurav Sawant are allowed to prance about. NewsX looks like a copy of all. CNN-IBN looks like His Master’s Voice except the BJP master and his main puppeteer are missing in action after this drubbing.

     

    **

     

    Jokes aside though, there is an urgent need for India’s best known journalists, especially those on TV, to do a little thinking. Their all out sycophancy for the government at the Centre has run its course. No?

     

  • World Cup 2015 is unpredictable. Not for which team would win but for marketers, brands and the media, writes Sanjeev Kotnala

    Sanjeev Kotnala: IPL is any day a better bet for brands!

    By Sanjeev Kotnala

     

    The Indian Premier League or Cricket World Cup is a choice or problem for a few brands. You either have money to splurge on both tournaments or you don’t. Those who have money either have a campaign to run or they don’t. And brands with money and campaign, it is only the rate and ROI issue. ROI can never be guaranteed and remains a gamble. So, if you have the money and a campaign and need to advertise during these times you may want need to look at it differently.

     

    World Cup 2015 is unpredictable. Not for which team would win but for marketers, brands and the media. Success here depends on audience interest, viewership, viewer’s empathy and apathy towards the team. Oh yes, the die-hard will watch anything, but the deciders are the real consumers; the fringe audience that makes the numbers advertiser look at. Match timings are big spoiler for them. We can expect non-India matches to be completely blanketed. Unfortunately, such matches form a large percentage of the tournament. The main sponsor get these ineffective buys as a package helping them show lower ER.  Non-sponsor brands try avoiding them but are served as no-option as channel has to square off the investment.

     

    IF (a capital, bold IF) India plays well in the 1st final (India Vs. Pak) it could change the whole game. We as a nation are currently feeling low entering WC15 after a series of losses. Cricket is suffering from lack of empathy and viewers apathy.

     

    On these qualitative counts itself IPL outscores WC-15 with a high percentage of your real TG hooked on to every match.

     

    Srini or No-Srini, 12 or 8 teams, ball-tampering or fixed matches nothing changes the ground rule; IPL is a festival, a mela, a tamasha we all enjoy with a spicy tadka of regionalisation. IPL demands less of your time, give you much to discuss and is much more fun. It is realignment of interest, supports and stars. The audience loves this cut-throat high intensity not giving an inch of attitude. They smile, so can the channel and the advertisers. The patriotic feeling is understated or completely dead and that makes team losing a bit more manageable for the viewer.

     

    I firmly believe that even a low WC-15 performance by the Indian team will fail to dampen the IPL spirit. Good or near decent show will help IPL. In gambling terms, with IPL you hold the royal run. IPL is always a new beginning. With auctions, there is always a new team under every banner. It has a clearly differentiated taste and flavour.

     

    On the other hand, the hard focus on TV impact in these tournaments creates blinkers and brands end up underutilising or missing opportunities with other media. Radio and hoarding are good bets. In WC, by the time newspapers share the result of a match, the audience would be watching the next day’s match.  But if you want to add regionalised tadka in IPL making it exciting for your brand, go talk to your print guy and be pleasantly surprised with the ideas they have.

     

    Sanjeev Kotnala is Head Catalyst at Intradia and believes the best way forward for an organisation is to enhance the potential of  internal teams instead of depending on external resources. He is a management- marketing-media consultant and also conducts specialised workshops in the area of ‘Harvesting and Liberating Ideas’ and Innovation.  To contact email netkot@yahoo.com or tweet at s_kotnala visit www.intradia.in  www.sanjeevkotnala.com. The views expressed here are his own.